IT’S A tough time right now to be a frontliner.
Medical professionals aren’t just putting themselves at risk for coronavirus infection. (Mostly due to a lack of personal protective equipment, said Dr. Oscar Tinio, spokesperson of the Philippine Medical Association, to NPR; PGH spokesperson Jonas del Rosario told Rappler that the 130-bed facility can burn through some 700 PPEs per day.) A few of them are also facing discrimination, abuse, and outright assault.
On the flipside, though, ordinary citizens are finding small, creative, and meaningful ways to support and cheer on these health professionals.
They’re making juice concentrate for them.
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Two UP Diliman food technology students have cooked up Lucal, a vitamin-rich, all-natural ginger-calamansi concentrate, and donated it to frontliners at the Lung Center and PGH.
They're leaving food out for them.
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Delivery personnel are frontliners, too, as they work to keep logistics up and running in this time of community quarantine. A small bakery in Pasig has put up a merienda station for these frontliners on wheels.
They’re letting them go to the front of the line in supermarkets.
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Pediatrician Arnel Jowjow Manayon Jumayao shares this heartwarming story on his Facebook account. While doing some after-duty shopping in Robinsons Supermarket in Eastwood City, Pasig, both managers and customers allowed him to go the front of the line. ““Sige na, Doc. Mauna na po kayo[,] maraming salamat po sa ginagawa ninyo,” one customer even told him.
They’re donating bikes and even e-scooters.
Donations don’t just come in the form of cash, food, or PPEs. Some enterprising citizens are giving ways for frontliners to get around. A group of electric kick scooter enthusiasts are lending their rides to some hospitals and health workers.
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Electric Kick Scooter Philippines founder Timothy Vargas said that he was inspired by Life Cycles PH, one of the first groups to have mobilized to provide frontliner transportation when ECQ began. As of the end of March, they’ve turned over 318 bicycles to doctors, nurses, grocery employees, and more.
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They’re letting them crash in schools.
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La Salle Green Hills high school along Ortigas Avenue has opened up its classrooms as temporary quarters for the staff of nearby Medical City. “We hope you find in our school, a refuge, a safe shelter,” the school said on its Facebook page.
They’re making children’s cards for them.
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Near the end of March, Dr. Nicole Perreras of the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine hit upon the simple, brilliant, heartwarming idea to solicit get-well cards from children stuck at home. The response was overwhelming. Now she and her team are posting select letters on the Letters for Patients page. But even if most of the cards are meant for patients, Perreras told Inquirer that some of the cards ended up cheering up the doctors themselves.
They’re applauding them from their balconies.
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On April 4, Kevin Tristan Espiritu posted a goosebumps-inducing video of the tenants of Light Residences in Mandaluyong applauding all the frontliners from their windows and balconies. Many condominium buildings across the metro have been doing the same across the weeks NCR has been under enhanced community quarantine.
Source: Spin PH
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